Art smart
For fine arts students, it's all about passion
Kaylin Hertel, Leawood, Kan., junior, melts metal to use for her jewelry design class in the Art and Design building. Hertel plans to pursue a career in fashion jewelry after she graduates.
By Jessie Fetterling jfetterling@kansan.com
Morgan Fogarty, Chicago alum, considered many fields of study before deciding to major in dance. She thought about becoming a nurse or a dentist, but finally she decided she just wanted to do what she was good at, and for her, that meant dancing.
After graduating last May, Fogarty moved to New York City with a friend and lived at a YMCA for two weeks before finding an apartment, which she describes as "lame and shitty." She now works at both a restaurant and at Broadway Dance Center dance studio, where she makes ID cards.
Fogarty says she gets distracted easily by the big city, but she still goes on about six auditions a month, hoping to catch her big break and work as a professional dancer. Although Fogarty is interested in modern dance, she has auditioned for jobs in a variety of dance genres, including a musical called "Sex, Drugs, and Ukuleles."
Fogarty keeps a positive attitude toward auditions despite facing rejection."Most of the times it's about the look," Fogarty says. "It's better to go on a lot of auditions because one day you will most likely be what they are looking for."
Philip Voetsche, a professional jeweler and professor of computer-aided design, has also had to keep a positive attitude toward his work. Like Fogarty, Voetsche wanted to strike out into his field and design immediately after he graduated from KU in 1976. He too went to New York City and even to the iconic jewelry company Tiffany & Co., where the staff told him to come back when his hair was gray.
Voetsche later moved to Gardner, Kan., to work for a jeweler and start from the ground up. He worked for a couple more companies before he became an independent contractor, and Voetsche now owns his own store in Prairie Village, Kan.,
called Jewelry by Design.
Voetsche's daughter, Erica, and Kaylin Hertel. Leawood juniors, also want to pursue careers in jewelry. They both discovered a passion for jewelry when they studied it in high school and knew from then that jewelry design and metalsmithing is what they wanted to do. Both spend much of their free
Erica Voetsch sells her jewelry at a Valentine's Day jewelry sale in the Art and Design building on Feb. 13.
time working on their craft in the studio, but the pair's hard work has paid off. Voetches has already had her own art show and sold several of her pieces, and a socket Hertel designed was recently accepted into an exhibition in New York called "Exploring Boundaries."
Kevin Finch, San Antonio senior, knew he wanted to major in art ever since he designed and raced derby cars in Boy Scouts. He found an outlet for his artistic interests in industrial design, which he describes as designing products. In this field, Finch has designed products like watches to furniture.
Instead of reading Locke's Two Treatises of Government or cramming for macroeconomics tests, Finch and his peers have been studying Da Vinci and designing up to 75 concepts per project to fulfill their major requirements. "It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," Finch says, "I pull all-nighters all the time and am never at home."
All three students plan on doing something with art after they graduate.Voetsche wants to work in the jewelry business, either becoming a retail jeweler or just doing her craft from home.Hertel hopes to get into the fashion industry and work on fashion jewelry,and Finch would like to design the interiors of boats.
Whether it's through dance, jewelry or product design, these artists have managed to follow their dreams. As Professor Voetsche says, "You'll never have to work a day in your life if you love what you do."
And for these five, that's just what they're doing.
Erica Voetsch, Leawood, Kan., junior, hammers metal she will eventually use to make a fork. Voetsch spends long hours working on projects for her jewelry and metal-smithing classes in the Art and Design building.
Photos by:
Jessie Fetterling
for more information: www.arts.ku.edu/art
02.28.2008
VOL 5 ISS. 22
07